He walked through the long pain-wracked night, his thunderous footsteps pounding in his head and sending ripples up through his body; his brain sloshing around in his skull every time he pitched headfirst into the frozen ground. Every time he rose he relived that day in Mexico City when Gonzales beat his ass and sent him to the canvas 13 times in 10 rounds. That was such a terrible beating that Pudge and Eddie Short did not even try to give him advice between rounds. It was all they could do to keep his face closed up and his airways open.
As he crawled back to his feet he could see Chink standing before him in the hotel room, wagging his finger. “This spic is a contender. You’ve got about as much chance of beating him as my old lady has of getting her virginity back. But I’ve got ten-fucking-thousand riding on you going the distance—Gonzales has knocked out everybody he’s faced. They love him, ‘El Gauncho’ they call him. Well hillbilly, at the end of the night I plan on splitting ten-grand…”
The squishing sound inside of his head pushed Chink’s acne-scarred face out of focus in his mind’s eye.
His fingers were throbbing. The dude in the freight-yard with the black needle eyes was slicing him up while the General discussed the disposal of his body with the chauffer. He was crawling up through frozen turf while the Man Below tugged on his ankles…
He was tearing at the tight clothes that bound and suffocated him. He could not get them off! They were orange prison coveralls cut for a featherweight and he could not breathe!
He was ascending from an ocean abyss in a wetsuit that was too small. He didn’t know how to stop the nitrogen bubbles from forming in his blood. But he shot to the surface none-the-less, fleeing in terror from the Man Below. He flopped on the deck of their deserted ship—no, it wasn’t deserted, the rest were all dead, strewn about—and slashed the constrictive wetsuit away from his body with Mother’s kitchen knife as he lay on his side gasping for air…
He woke on Mother’s kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood as she stood crying above him and his unfeeling hands turned evermore pale before his lifeless…
He could hear twenty-thousand Mexicans screaming, “El Gauncho!” as his bloody snot arced out of the ring and the world turned…
He was curled up next to a trash bin in Miss Ann’s kitchen while Ojay, her lap dog, sexually assaulted him—Dude, wake up!
What You Get for Thinking
Something snorted in his face and the frozen ground rumbled, sending painful vibrations into his tortured body. He was so stiff, could not even feel his right hand, and the left felt like a balloon of fluid, about to burst. Something stomped the ground so hard in front of him that his teeth rattled in his mouth. Warm wet goo splashed across his bald head as a sharp wind that smelled like the clipping-shoot of a lawn-mower blew in his face.
It’s got to be Randy, using the leaf-blower to wake you up for school again.
On pure unreasoned impulse he lurched to his feet and lunged upward with a right uppercut intended to stretch his sadistic big brother out on the bedroom floor. He heard something pop below his shoulder and felt a twinge of pain as the morning sun seared his eyes and the black shape that hovered over him like a leaning tree snorted and reared even as the Arkansas toothpick in his fist slashed open it’s throat!
He heard a roar and looked around, then down, and around again, as the sky bounced off the ground and the horizon spun in circles. It was just him and a gushing mooing hump-backed bull of giant proportions kicking and jerking beneath—no, it was far too big to stand over, in front of—him.
Man, what a headache dummy.
That’s what you get for thinking.
He could feel the warm sun caressing his back and the cold breeze nipping at his body hair, could feel every dent, scoop, scar and burn on his body, because those were the places with no hair. His feet were warm—he was wearing his boots and socks. Otherwise he was naked except for his jockstrap.
You should gather your gear—meat!
He heard a salivating growl.
Is that you dude?
He was suddenly thirsty and starved and intoxicated with the reek of warm blood still gushing from the massive auroch before him. He squatted under the bull’s shoulder and drank the blood greedily as it continued to gush from the gaping wound in its neck, which was as thick as an oak trunk. He drank, and then sucked until his stomach began to stretch. He finally regained some self-control and stopping sucking out the thick liquid.
Thanks bro. Sorry about the good morning. I’ll try to eat as much of you as I can before the thieves come around.
He searched around for his gear. His clothing was fairly shredded. He managed to knot a crude loin cloth around his hips from the remnants of his coveralls. His combat harness was intact, though he was missing a katana, and only had 11 arrows in his case. Somehow, in his mania to cut himself out of his clothes he had punctured one canteen and slashed open the other. He did not feel strong. He must have had some kind of bad infection stemming from the injury to his hand. He looked down and saw the crudely sewn and un-bandaged finger stubs of his left hand.
What happened?
He remembered being overrun by the hyenas as Jacques and Terrence were eaten alive, and then making off with Eddie into the night. Things got hazy at that point. He could recall being attacked by wolves, of Eddie surrounded by a pack of wolves by a campfire as he staggered off into the night—and then the snorting bull.
That was it?
Darn hillbilly, you are here for good.
Don’t be a quitter dummy. Remember what coach Stackhouse said, ‘Quitting is a hard habit to break.’
He continued thinking as he cut out the kidneys and ate them raw, and then sliced off half of the liver and downed that. He stuck to eating the organs because he had no immediate means of making fire, and did not want to contract any intestinal parasites without the hope of medical treatment. He cut a few steaks and stuffed them in his arrow case, using them as pin cushions to stick the arrows into and keep them from rattling around.
Ingenious that was hillbilly.
He then skinned the exposed flank of the bull. He scraped the interior of the hide of fat and gristle and then stretched it out and urinated on the inside. He then pulverized the hide with his right fist until the hand was completely numb. He then cut a hole for his head, and draped the piece over his shoulders. The harness was shouldered and buckled over the crude hide poncho, which he then slashed down the sides so his arms would have full mobility. He tied-off the front and back pieces at his hips.
There you go hillbilly, ready for church.
What should I do?
Find the gadget!
Yeah, right. It probably got eaten with Eddie, besides you ain’t operating no time machine. Remember the gadget that Randy gave you to keep your matches dry when you were out for the first time on your own? That was so embarrassing having to come back and tell him that you couldn’t remember how to twist it open and had hacked it up with your knife. Shoot that cost him six bucks. He whooped your ass righteously.
Just live free dummy. They are gone. You are here. It is what it is. Where is the rest of the meat? I bet its coming this way from the east, heading toward the valley… and there will be some people following the herds. Just make your place man. Those hyenas and wolves did you a favor.
He felt a sudden pang of guilt for writing his friends off like that.
Bury that dummy. Look to tomorrow. Live like God intended you to while you can. It’s just a matter of time before the Man Below gets you anyhow—and there is nothing you can do to change that. You already punched your ticket.
Damn the morning smells good…head into the wind.
It was Seven-thirty a.m. at the Beginning of Time, and Jay Bracken felt like he was where he belonged.
What about Sharita and the Twins?
Hell’s bells, Tina’s got that covered. That girl’s a better husband than you could ever be. Keep your eyes ahead and ears around dummy. We’re walking in the now. Stay sharp.
